← Fame through time2018
2018
Who the world actually read about in 2018 - readers across every language edition we measure, whoever they were and whenever they lived.
Most read
Who people actually looked up in 2018, across every language edition we measure.
- 1
Freddie Mercury24M - 2
Cristiano Ronaldo22.9M - 3
Elizabeth II22.1M - 4
Stephen Hawking21.1M - 5
Donald Trump19.3M - 6
Elon Musk19M - 7
Cardi B18.4M - 8
Lionel Messi16.3M - 9
XXXTentacion16.2M - 10
Avicii13.6M - 11
LeBron James12.9M - 12
Jason Momoa12.8M - 13
Ariana Grande12.7M - 14
George H. W. Bush12.6M - 15
6ix9inenot measured12.5M - 16
Anthony Bourdain12.3M - 17
Stan Lee12.1M - 18
Queen Victorianot measured12M - 19
Meghan, Duchess of Sussexnot measured12M - 20
Dwayne Johnson11.8M - 21
Priyanka Chopra11.5M - 22
John McCain11.4M - 23
Kylian Mbappé11.4M - 24
Pablo Escobar11.3M - 25
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh11.1M
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in 2018, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Andrew Garfield0 decades - 2
Emily Blunt0 decades - 3
Mila Kunis0 decades - 4
Chris Hemsworth1 decades - 5Avicii0 decades
- 6
Henry Cavill0 decades - 7
Edward Snowden1 decades - 8XXXTentacion0 decades
- 9
Lupita Nyong'onot measured- - 10
Katrina Kaif0 decades - 11
Jesse Eisenberg0 decades - 12
Felicity Jonesnot measured- - 13
Álvaro Arbeloa0 decades - 14
Kate Mara0 decades - 15
Adam Driver0 decades - 16
Carrie Underwood1 decades - 17
Miranda Kerr0 decades - 18
Robin van Persie0 decades - 19
Donald Glovernot measured- - 20
Jonah Hill0 decades - 21
Tessa Thompson0 decades - 22
Greta Gerwig0 decades - 23
Franck Ribéry2 decades - 24
Karol Nawrockinot measured- - 25
Kate Bosworth0 decades
How to read these rankings
- Attention, not reputation. A place on these lists reflects the attention a person still draws in the public record. It is not a judgement on the life.
- Fame in print. The curves show how often a name appeared in the books of each decade from 1800 to 2019, drawn from the Google Books Ngram corpus.
- Gaps are left as gaps. Where the record is too thin to be fair, we would rather show nothing than guess.